Cheap and Cheerful
by Maxi-Luca
Summary: A series of pranks between friends leads to something unexpected, yet welcomed.


**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Chicago Fire or any characters affiliated with it. They all belong to NBC.**

**Author's Note:**** Dedicated to tumblr user malkkum. Thank you for the prompt! PS... We need more Shafferty fics. We got one month before we see our favorite short haired paramedic!**

Cheap and Cheerful

It had been quiet and calm at Firehouse 51 the past few weeks. Allison Rafferty was reinstated as Paramedic in Charge when Gabriela Dawson went back into the fire academy. No one had been badly hurt, no civilians had died, and the world was turning. Things were going well for everyone. However, when it came to matters of the heart, Life gave Leslie Shay limes instead of lemons.

During Rafferty's suspension, she and Shay had continued on their friendship, occasionally meeting up for a beer to watch women's soccer, one of many things they shared an interest in. Eventually they began to meet up and have dinner if they were both free. Soon, they began texting each other constantly, sending each other funny pictures, sometimes Rafferty would send cat gifs with a comment about lesbians and cats, to which Shay would reply **"I don't even like cats**_."_

Right away Rafferty would come back with **"Not a fan of sports and not a fan of cats? What kind of lesbian are you?" **Because, despite her interest in women's soccer, Shay wasn't a fan of sports.

**"The kind you wish you were,"** was Shay's reply.

This banter went on even when Rafferty was reinstated until the day Shay decided she had had enough of Rafferty's cat comments and wanted to do something about it. She spent one morning deciding on what to do. It had to be something subtle, but still ensue a laugh and cause some embarrassment for her partner. She looked through old texts to see if something called to her. After a while she came across a small series of memes with sloths that Rafferty had sent her. From that, Shay deducted that Rafferty liked sloths. Why? Shay would never know. To her, the animal was odd looking and all she could think about was Sid from "Ice Age." From there she knew what she was going to do.

She was able to sneak to Kelly Severide's office and print out a small picture of a sloth. When Rafferty wasn't looking- which was a rarity because Rafferty was on guard about 99.99% of the time- Shay was quickly able to tape the picture of the sloth's face on top of Rafferty's on her badge.

When Rafferty put her badge on, Shay almost couldn't contain her giggles. She felt so nerdy and lame, but she couldn't help herself. Especially after an hour and a half passed before Rafferty realized what was on her badge because Herrmann had pointed it out.

"What the hell is this?" Rafferty said, slightly amused, "When did you do this?"

Shay let out a laugh, "Oh, that?" She tried to play innocent, "I didn't even notice it."

"So I've been walking around with a sloth on my badge all morning?"

"Well, not _all_ morning," Shay answered, averting eye contact, cracking a smile.

"Oh, it's on, Leslie."

Shay stood tall and spread out her arms in mock taunt, "Bring it."

From then on, the women continued to test each other. Rafferty took Shay's blue and red pens then switched the inks. When Shay had to write up a report, she'd reach for blue pen after blue pen only to end up with red ink until she tried the red pen and found it was blue. Right away she knew it was her partner's doing and she knew she had to retaliate. It took a few days but the one day at the end of shift, the moment that Rafferty had to excuse herself from the locker room, Shay went to work. She quickly took Rafferty's bag, emptied its contents, then flipped it inside out. She replaced the contents of the bag and placed it back in Rafferty's locker. As soon as Rafferty returned, Shay said her goodbyes then made a hasty exit. To say Rafferty was speechless would be an understatement, but she did have an incredible laugh. She knew she had to get Shay back.

One day when the entire firehouse was in the common room, both Rafferty and Shay say at the corner table with Severide. They talked about beers and jazz music- which was Rafferty's favorite genre- then Shay excused herself to the restroom but left her cell phone on the table. It was like a ray of light shone on the phone, just there, perfect and beautiful waiting for Rafferty to grab it- which she did. She held it in her hands as if it was a stick of gold.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Severide asked.

"Do you know Shay's password?" Rafferty asked, ignoring his inqury.

Severide grinned, "Yep." He took the phone and entered Shay's password quickly and returned it.

"Do me a favor?" Rafferty asked, "Can you stall Shay for a bit? I'm going to do a little remodeling on her phone."

"Sure thing." With that, Severide rose and strolled toward the locker room where he knew Shay was.

Rafferty went to work quickly going through Shay's contacts, picking out random names and changing them to the names of characters from The Lord of the Rings book series. She changed each name on Shay's favorites list and others randomly from the contacts, as many as she dared. Luckily when she was satisfied, she was able to place Shay's cell back on the table just as Shay and Severide returned.

"Kelly, I already told you, I don't care whether or not you start using an electrical razor," Shay said as she was returning to her seat at the table.

"Fine," Severide said, putting up his hands, eyeing Rafferty ever so subtly.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that Shay was staring at her phone with her eyes wide in astonishment and confusion. "What the hell is this?" she said, going through her contacts. She looked up at and around the room before landing her eyes on Rafferty, who was busying looking at the news paper and drinking tea. "What did you do?"

"Hmm?" Rafferty looked up from her paper to Shay.

Shay said nothing but held up her phone.

Rafferty shook her head and scrunched up her face. "What?"

"What did you do to my contacts?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Shay said nothing but clenched her jaw and gave her attention to her phone as she tried to figure out who was who.

A few days later, Shay noticed that Rafferty had brought Oreo cookies in a ziplock bag. She had remembered a prank a friend of hers played on an older sibling back in high school and knew she had to replicate it. She waited a few hours until Rafferty was nearly out. When Rafferty had taken a restroom break, Shay dove into her jacket pocket and grabbed a cookie out of the ziplock and carefully separated it and scrapped off the cream. She took her toothpaste and slathered some onto the cookie and sandwiched it in haste before placing it back in the bag and back into Rafferty's jacket. Rafferty returned from the restroom and went to the fridge and pulled out some milk and poured herself a glass. It took all of Shay's will power not to laugh, but she couldn't control herself from a huge grin on her face. In order to hide is, she pulled out her phone and pretended she was texting. She watched from the corner of her eyes as Rafferty made her way back to the table and sat with a glass of milk in hand. Rafferty pulled out one of two cookie that were left and bit into it. There was no reaction meaning she had eaten the regular cookie. Now Shay was on edge and barely containing herself in her seat as Rafferty reached for the final cookie. It was like time slowed down. Shay could hear the beating of her own heart, the tick-tocks of the clock on the wall, the gulping of Cruz's throat as he drank water on the other side of the common room. It was an eternity as Rafferty raised her arm, cookie in hand and brought it to eye level. But then she paused, holding her news paper as an eye brow lifted. Shay internally screamed and imagined herself jumping from her chair with a screeching Xena type war cry as she tore the news paper out of Rafferty's hands and shredded the paper in a display of primal rage.

She really needed Rafferty to bite into that damned cookie already.

Slowly Rafferty's hand made its way to her mouth, her teeth biting down onto the would be tasty treat. It was as if confetti fell from the ceilings and champagne bottles popped open, Shay was so happy. Then Rafferty made a disgruntled noise and rose from her chair and bolted to the trash can and spit out the cookie. Shay couldn't help it and began to laugh. She laughed hard and brought her hands to cover her face while peeking at Rafferty, who stood at the trash can staring at Shay, not a single hint of humor. Instead there was a look of inner pain plastered on Rafferty's face which made Shay's giggles subside. Her entire body stiffened when she saw Rafferty's eye glaze over and her lip quiver ever so slightly. Without a word Rafferty high tailed out of the common room and towards the rest rooms. Shay rose quickly and followed her out.

By the time Shay had reached the restrooms, Rafferty was already inside. For a few seconds, Shay stood and leaned against the wall next to the door needing to gather herself. She didn't think Rafferty would have actually gotten upset at this prank. Did Rafferty really just love Oreo cookies that much? She cracked open the door and called in, "Rafferty?" There was no answer. She went inside, "Allison?" she tried again.

"Not now, Leslie." Rafferty's voice cracked through a stall.

It hurt Shay, hurt her bad in a way she didn't think possible and she drowned in guilt. "I'm sorry, Allison. I didn't mean any harm by it. It was just a prank." There was no response, "I'm really sorry, I promise I won't prank you anymore."

Rafferty blew her nose from inside the stall. "It's not that. I don't mind the pranks."

Shay cracked a smile as she leaned on the door to the next stall. "Good. I really like us pranking each other." She paused. "Please come out and talk to me."

After a few seconds the door opened and revealed a red, puffy eyed Rafferty who stole a quick glance at Shay before going to the sink and turning on the faucet to splash water on her face. "I'm sorry."

"Why should you be sorry?"

"For acting like this." Rafferty turned off the water, took some paper towels and patted her face dry. "I'm sorry." She turned around, leaned against the sink, but didn't raise her head and looked down at the floor.

Shay walked to her and leaned against the sink next to her with her hands inside her pockets. Gently, Shay nudged Rafferty, "Hey, talk to me."

Rafferty swallowed and cleared her throat. "Kyle, my fiancé, and I would prank each other a lot too. It was nice having those feelings these past few days." She paused and swallowed again. "The Oreo thing, he did that to me. All of those other feelings just rushed back and I just..."

"Hey, it's okay," Shay soothed, turning her body towards Rafferty and placing a hand on the other woman's shoulder, "It's okay."

Rafferty looked up at Shay, her mouth slightly opened and made eye contact. "I haven't felt so carefree and happy in a long time."

"I'm glad I bring that out in you."

"You do," Rafferty said, placing a hand on Shay's neck, "You really do." She took a breath, "What is it about you?" she asked, more to herself than to Shay.

"Me?" Shay was nearly hypnotized, still not having broken eye contact. She didn't even realized she was leaning forward.

"You make me feel so carefree. So happy and alive. Only Kyle was able to make me feel like this. Now you do."

This time it was Shay who swallowed the enormous lump that developed in her throat. "What does that mean?"

Rafferty leaned forward, pulling Shay's face towards her and kissed the blonde woman hard. When they pulled away, Rafferty slowly opened her eyes and scanned Shay's face- who's eyes fluttered opened. "That," Rafferty answered, "If it's okay?"

Shay didn't answer. The smile that spread across her face was all the answer that was need. She grabbed at Rafferty's arms and pulled her in again and kissed her passionately. Her hands moved from Rafferty's arms to her face. One hand traveled through Rafferty's soft hair.

They stayed there, in the restroom for a little long, giggling like school children, foreheads touching, yet arms sturdy around each other. It was the beginning of something wonderful. Shay could feel it. And Rafferty knew it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life.

END SCENE


End file.
